Mark,
A more serious response to your comments below:
"Besides, if Chandler is that great himself (no argument from
me there), then certainly he should be able to withstand any
kind of insult. Consider the sins (if they be sins) that have
been committed against Shakespeare in the name of adaptation
and updating. A purist could have issued a fatwa against
Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim, and
Jerome Robbins for the 'sacrilege' against 'Romeo and Juliet'
that is 'West Side Story.' But Shakespeare seems to have
survived just fine (and so, for that matter, has the
brilliant 'West Side Story')."
This really isn't a good analogy. Bernstein, et al, weren't
deliberately trying to trash Shakespeare. They were taking a
familiar Shakespearean plot and putting it in a modern
setting.
The characters weren't wildly divergent from their orginal
inspirations. Tony, for example, wasn't an unromantic uggo
deliberately patterned to be the opposite of Romeo. Neither
was Maria a harsh, unattractive strumpet totally unlike the
beauteous innocent that was Juliet.
Arguably, Shakespeare himself did a far greater job of
trashing his own ROMEO & JULIET with the "Pyramus and
Thisby" sketch in MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM than Bernstein ever
did. Of course, that was an outright parody, not a supposedly
straight adaptation. And, IIRC, MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
actually precedes R&J, so, technically, I suppose,
R&J trashed P&T.
Altman, by contrast, said right out that it was his intention
to portray Marlowe as a loser, a REAL loser unlike the heroic
figure cast by Chandler, and further, implied that, by making
Marlowe heroic, Chandler was somehow selling out.
One can look at Richard Beymer's performance in WSS and,
comparing it to, say, Leonard Whiting's, Leo DiCaprio's,
Laurence Harvey's, or Leslie Howard's, can see that we're
looking at essentially the same character.
One can't honestly compare Elliot Gould's performance to Dick
Powell's, Humphrey Bogart's, Robert Mitchum's, or Powers
Boothe's, and conclude that we're looking at essentially the
same character.
To me that seems obvious on its face.
"It could be that Altman's apparent disrespect for Chandler
is actually a mark of the highest respect -- a riff on a the
work of a fellow master. That's certainly what I
think."
The fact that you acknowledge that Altman's disprespect for
Chandler is apparent shows how far one has to twist and turn
to reach the conclusion that his version of TLG is somehow a
faithful, or at least a
"respectful," adaptation.
I prefer to take things at face value. Altman's dispresepct
is apparent (and, moreover, stated outright), therefore it is
real, and not, by some tortured reasoning, a sign of "true"
respect.
You like the film? Well, fine. That's a matter of taste. For
myself, quite aside from the fact that it pisses all over the
book, I found it dull and listless with no characters I
really cared about. But some people like chocolate and some
like vanilla.
What I'll still never understand, though, whatever virtues
the film may or may not possess, is how anyone who purports
to be a Chandler fan can claim to enjoy a movie that so
deliberately trashes his most ambitious novel.
And this is not, as has been suggested, a case of a
"cult of personality." Chandler, after all, was, in many
ways, not an altogether nice man. And it may be that Altman
was a prince. I don't know.
I DO know, however, that if Chris Columbus had done to Harry
Potter, or Peter Jackson to Frodo Baggins, what Altman did to
Marlowe, that Rowling fans and Tolkien fans would have howled
to the high heavens. So the acquiesence of Chandler fans to
Altman's "riff" on THE LONG GOODBYE really does puzzle
me.
JIM DOHERTY
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